


A Child's Smile

by deliciouslycrzy



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Babies, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, SaiLin babies, parenting, parenting issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciouslycrzy/pseuds/deliciouslycrzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tries so damned hard to be a good dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Child's Smile

It wasn’t easy.

Nothing in his life has been, so Saikhan hadn’t really expected being a father to be a cake walk either, especially not with his past. With a father who’d been nonexistent, and a mother who’d rather him dead, he was pretty damn sure he’d be the worst father in the world, which was exactly why he’d been… hesitant, when Lin had brought up the idea of adoption.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want a child - he did. Oh by the spirits, he did, and always had, but… How could he possibly be a good father, or even a mediocre father, when he hadn’t even known his own? How could he raise a child with his baggage, with his issues?

But…

He loved Lin, and he trusted her, implicitly, and if she said that she trusted him, that she believed he’d be a good father…

He’d try his damndest. 

And so, they adopted two beautiful little babies, twins. Tetsu and Sokka Beifong, and the moment that he saw them, that he felt their heartbeats through the stone and felt against his thumb, he fell in love.

His.

His and Lin’s.

 **Their**  children.

At first, he was exhausted all of the time, and stressed out and there never seemed to be enough hours in the day, but… he was happy. He was busy, but he was happy, when he’d wake at 3 in the morning to one of them crying, and he’d be exhausted as ,he held Sokka and rocked him, or fed Tetsu, but then they’d smile, or curl their little fist around his finger and squeeze, with that little baby grip, and it’d all be worth it.

It wasn’t hard in ways one would think, that one would expect from a couple at their age, with their sort of work - Saikhan had taken early retirement when they’d made the official decsion, though it had been something he’d been thinking about since the anti-bending revolution, and they make it work.

It was the small things, the supposedly inconsequential things, the moments where he was supposed to happy, proud, or things most would pay no attention to at all, that were the hardest, and that all took some getting used to.

Bathes, what sort of food they should eat, manners. Discipline. Trusting himself with his own children, something which seemed the most difficult for him.

More than days, more than weeks. Years would pass, and he’d still find himself struggling, between what he remembered in his past and what he knew was right. Between what came naturally to him and what had been drilled into him for years.

Like when he had to give Sokka a bath for the first time, when he was three. Saikhan’s own experience with bathes were… traumatic, to say the least, and for the longest time he’d been absolutely against the idea of having to give his children one.

Lin had always handled the baths and showering and anything to do with water, really, or the nanny had, and up until now, he’d never been put in the position where he’d had to be the one to do it. Lin knew, and even though he’d been working through his issues with water, his issues about his mother, they both knew it was unlikely he’d ever be able to bathe them, as silly and ridiculous and shameful that sounded, at least to him.

Lin was out with Tetsu, visiting her mother, and he was having a ‘boys day’ with Sokka, and, long story short, the little earthbender got himself covered head to toe in mud, and Saikhan found himself between a rock and hard place when he got the boy home and realized that sticking him in the empty bathtub and telling him not to take too long just wasn’t going to cut it.

Sokka didn’t want to take a bath, he could tell and Saikhan didn’t really want to give him one either, but even though he’d bent off the mud already, the boy would still need a bath, a shower just wouldn’t work.

**You could just call Lin…**

But Sokka was staring at him- or rather, through him- with those big, wide trusting eyes, and Saikhan sighed. This was his son, and…

He could do this, without Lin’s help.

So he braced himself - a deep breath, a moment to pull himself together, and then he was stepping back into the bathroom, picking his son up and turning on the water in one swift motion.

Filling up the tub took nearly ten minutes - he had Sokka test the temperature as it was coming out of the faucet, ‘too hot, too cold’? and the boy thought it was a game and started sticking his hand under the spout and funneling it with his palm , “Daddy look, I’m a waterbender!" and even though internally he was freaking out because water, and his son was touching water and in a second he’d have to put his son in said water, he couldn’t help but smile at the expression of pure delight on Sokka’s face.

And then came the actual bathing part. Saikhan thought it would be easy, from the way that Sokka was happily playing with the water, but once he’d turned the faucet off. the boy had frozen, and then backed up from the tub.

" I don’t wanna take a bath, Daddy." He’d said, and then pouted, not from fear but out of defiance and dislike. “Gramma says that dirt’s good and bathes are evil." 

Saikhan sighed, moving to sit on the edge of the bathtub. He ignored the fact that water was mere inches from him, and held his arms out towards Sokka instead, hoping that he’d come to him willingly.

He could easily bend the stone tile underneath their feet and compel him forward, or use metalbending to snag the metal zipper in Sokka’s shirt and drag him forward, but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t do that to his son. He had never used bending on his children and he wouldn’t start now.

So he just looked at him, an eyebrow raised, and Sokka huffed, his lips pursing in a pout that Saikhan recognized all too well. 

" Daddy-"

" Sokka." 

Another huff.

" I’ll take a bath if you take a bath, Daddy." 

A beat of silence, followed by a sigh that hopefully masked the pounding of his heart in his chest, and then;

" Alright."  

Being a father…

It wasn’t easy.

It was damned hard sometimes, most of the time, really.

But it was rewarding.

Curling up on the couch, his son - still fully dressed and soaked through, but at least he was  _clean_ \- asleep against his chest, fist tightly gripping his father’s shirt even in rest…

It was worth all of the sleepless nights in the world. 


End file.
